1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to network devices. More specifically, embodiments of the invention relate to methods and systems for customizing and dynamically navigating a representation of a network device configuration.
2. Description of the Background Art
Various network devices are required for communication across networks and are configured so that they can communicate with other network devices. The configuration is accomplished using a configuration that may include the addresses of the devices, protocols for communication, handling inbound and outbound traffic, and so forth.
Conventionally, the configuration may be modified with the help of a text interface. One such text interface in wide use is referred to such as a command line interface. A series of commands are entered line by line to the command line interface for this purpose. Because of the sheer size and complexity of the configuration it is often difficult to read and navigate, even if these configuration commands being modified are few in number.
Once a network device is deployed in a network, a network service provider is often tasked with handling the modification of the configuration for a large number of network devices. It is also very difficult for the service provider to understand the overall content, structure and relationship of these various configuration commands given the nuances of a complex network device. Further, with large, complex configurations, the task of identifying incomplete or inconsistent sections of the configuration becomes difficult.
It is also difficult to locate, navigate to or view desired portions of configuration commands in scattered portions of the configuration. While locating or navigating between portions of the configuration is difficult even with a relatively small number of commands or lines of code, it is especially burdensome for configuration s having tens of thousands of lines of code.
It is well recognized that modifying the configuration for a network device is slow and often prone to programming errors. Thus, a system and method for representing configuration commands of a network device that expedites the task of modifying (or simply viewing and navigating through) a configuration is clearly desirable.